thanks everyone for the comments on my last little rant. it definitely stirred up a little trouble, and it’s so funny that it got linked to an ultra conservative site as an example of an unhappy leftist feminist. ha ha. anyway, i appreciate all of your thoughts & i don’t mind being one of the loud naughty christians who stir up awareness of this issue because it needs stirring. we need reminding that sexism in the church is holding it back from what could be. we need reminding that we all play a part in breaking the chains of oppression for the unrepresented, the marginalized (and i’m not just talking about women) and that things will never change if we keep just leaning into the status quo. i have also yet again been reminded of something that i am pretty sure richard rohr said: the best criticism is to provide a better alternative… (definitely paraphrased but you get the point). even though so many times i think that all of the refuge nuttiness is insignificant in the big scheme of things, these kinds of moments remind me that we need more and more practical, real models where it is actually happening. we all know, theory is one thing; practice is quite another. what i’m seeing up-close-and-personal when it comes to equality in the church is really pretty. and really possible. and i am more than willing to do my little part in helping others try to live it out, too. my hope is over time (and oh is it going to take lot of it) it will become the norm instead of the exception.
over the next two weeks i wanted to share with you 3 video conversations that i recorded a couple of months ago with my-dear-and-wise-friend-on-the-journey phyllis mathis. she is a therapist, life-coach, and has been involved in church leadership in all kinds of shapes and forms for many years. she, like so many others i know, has ended up as a “church refugee”–displaced from “the church” after years and years of giving her life to it. so many of the stories we both intersect with over the course of the work that we do seems to center around church refugees. good, beautiful, people who for all kinds of reasons left all they once knew and are now in the foreign land of church-less-ness, cynicism, and loss. this particular conversation centers in on some of the disillusionment that often comes over “the system” and the realities of the gravitational pull toward margin.
as always, i would love to hear what it stirs up in you.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/13253645]